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Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit
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Philips and Time Inc.
Agree to Keep It Simple

Novel Deal Cuts the Hunt
For Table of Contents Page;
Negotiations Take Months

Finding the table of contents in a magazine usually means flipping through ads -- a page or two, sometimes 10 or more, sometimes dozens of pages. It's an often-annoying exercise, but it benefits advertisers by ensuring their wares will be on display to readers during the hunt.

Now, one advertiser is turning that system on its head. Starting Monday, in a few periodicals from Time Inc., the contents page will stare readers in the face the minute they open the cover, with no fumbling around.

Philips Electronics,
which is gaining a reputation on Madison Avenue for breaking conventions in reader- and viewer-friendly ways, is paying the Time Warner
magazine unit $5 million for a novel ad play. Issues of four magazines -- Time, Fortune, People and Business 2.0 -- will feature the table of contents on the first page; a flap on the inside front cover will tell readers Philips is making that possible. The issue of Time that's involved goes on sale Monday, April 24.

When it comes to getting space near or before the contents page, "everyone fights for it," says Melissa Pordy, director of media investment solutions for Cheil Communications America. "It's sort of, for lack of a better word, the Hollywood Walk of Fame."

While the table of contents guides readers, it is also used by some magazine publishers to create prime real estate for advertisers who want readers to see their products soon after opening the magazine. In fact, says one publisher, certain magazines will often spread the table of contents across two or three pages, then sprinkle those pages around the front of the book -- all to create more desirable ad spots. Promising advertisers ad space before a contents page is often done to secure additional business from the advertiser during the course of a year, this publisher says.

The placement of the contents page varies from magazine to magazine. The May 1 issue of Fortune, for example, has contents on pages 11 and 14. The April 24 issue of the New Yorker has contents on page 8. And the May issue of Vogue has contents that begin on page 22. Weeklies tend to have contents pages closer to the front than bulky fashion monthlies, which carry loads of ads from designers and other relevant marketers. In those cases, say media buyers, readers use the ads to discover new offerings from favorite designers.

With the Time Inc. magazines, readers will know right away about Philips's involvement. A flap on the inside front cover of the magazines will state: "Simplicity means not letting complexity stand in your way. It starts with the Table of Contents on the first page. And it continues with the last page where you'll see innovative products that will change the way you live."

Philips is buying more than seven ad pages in each of the magazines. The print ad was crafted by Omnicom Group's
DDB New York. A Time Inc. spokeswoman says the company has in the past put the table of contents on the first page of a magazine, and "we didn't put the table of contents anywhere we might not have placed it anyway."

Philips approached other magazine publishers, who declined to agree to the idea, according to one person familiar with the matter. Negotiations between Philips and Time Inc. took several months, this person says. Executives at Time Inc. were initially concerned about mandating that editors lay out their magazines in a certain way, says another person familiar with the situation. That sort of directive typically doesn't sit well with the top of any magazine's masthead, this person says.

Philips has been burnishing a "Simplicity" ad theme since 2004. Lately it's been pushing the theme with ad techniques that provide a benefit to the person who sees the advertising.

In October, the Amsterdam-based consumer-electronics company paid about $2 million to be the sole national sponsor of "60 Minutes" on CBS. The show featured fewer ads overall, and some of the extra time was given back to the news program for longer story segments.

Some efforts are proving too much for media outlets to handle. In March, Philips had to scrap a plan to buy premovie advertising time in theaters and use some of it to shorten the time filmgoers had to spend looking at ads before the start of the movie. Screenvision, which sells ad time in the Boston and Minneapolis theaters Philips wanted to use, didn't like the ads. Philips remains unbowed.

"You should expect that we will continue to push the envelope," says Geert van Kuyck, senior vice president, global marketing management, for Philips.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page B3

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General Motors Co. Chief Executive Mary Barra earned $16.2 million in a choppy first year at the helm, a pay package that far outpaces her predecessor’s compensation and exceeds the initial target set by the board when she took the job.

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